Pioneering work being carried out in a cave in New Mexico by researchers at McMaster University and The University of Akron, Ohio, is changing the understanding of how antibiotic resistance may have emerged and how doctors ...

Today's European Antibiotic Awareness Day demonstrates the necessity of the responsible use of antimicrobial substances in both humans and animals to prevent the development of antibiotic resistance. With this in mind, the ...

Supercomputer simulations at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have played a key role in discovering a new class of drug candidates that hold promise to combat antibiotic resistance. In a study led ...

Phage therapy may be a solution to treating infections caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Since 2013, researchers at the University of Helsinki in Finland have collected bacteriophages to combat antibiotic-resistant ...

In a new paper published in the journal Nature Communications, Oxford DPhil student Suzanne Ford from the Department of Zoology shows how the use of 'good bacteria' – or defensive microbes – could help fight diseases.

A team of researchers from the University of Freiburg has developed a system inspired by biology that can detect several antibiotics in human blood or other fluids at the same time. This biosensor system could be used for ...

Lake Lanier in Georgia is the primary water reservoir serving suburban and metropolitan Atlanta. When the lake's water level drops below a certain point, calls go out for water conservation and news reports show images of ...

A new study led by scientists at the University of Oxford has found that small DNA molecules known as plasmids are one of the key culprits in spreading the major global health threat of antibiotic resistance.

Antibiotics have worked to save many people's lives from bacterial infection. But as more and more antibiotics are prescribed and used, bacteria are becoming resistant to antibiotic treatments, leaving the case open for researchers ...

Two widely prescribed antibiotics—chloramphenicol and linezolid—may fight bacteria in a different way from what scientists and doctors thought for years, University of Illinois at Chicago researchers have found. Instead ...

Antibiotic resistance

Antibiotic resistance is the ability of a microorganism to withstand the effects of antibiotics. It is a specific type of drug resistance. Antibiotic resistance evolves via natural selection acting upon random mutation, but it can also be engineered by applying an evolutionary stress on a population. Once such a gene is generated, bacteria can then transfer the genetic information in a horizontal fashion (between individuals) by plasmid exchange. If a bacterium carries several resistance genes, it is called multiresistant or, informally, a superbug. The term antimicrobial resistance is sometimes used to explicitly encompass organisms other than bacteria.

Antibiotic resistance can also be introduced artificially into a microorganism through transformation protocols. This can aid in implanting artificial genes into the microorganism. If the resistance gene is linked with the gene to be implanted, the antibiotic can be used to kill off organisms that lack the new gene.